A former WWE writer has explained why he warned the company against Roman Reigns uttering the infamous line “suffering succotash” in a promo.
Roman Reigns is undeniably WWE’s current biggest star with a title reign that now stretches back over 700 days, The Tribal Chief is currently having one of the all-time great runs in the company. But that wasn’t always the case.
Between his time in The Shield coming to an end in 2014 and when he had to take time away due to a leukemia diagnosis, Reigns was built up as one of WWE’s biggest heroes, the only issue was the majority of fans didn’t see him as that.
One of the most uncomfortable moments for those who may have been cheering for Roman Reigns at this time was when he cut a promo on his former partner Seth Rollins and uttered the line “a sniveling little suckup sellout full of sufferin’ succotash!”
Speaking on The Ringer’s Cheap Heat podcast, former WWE head writer Brian Gewirtz, who now works in The Rock’s Seven Bucks Productions, explained why he tried to pull out all the stops to keep Reigns from saying the line:
“I was consulting WWE at the time. I saw ‘sufferin’ succotash’ in the script and I was just like sending out flare guns like, no! Don’t have him say that. There’s no good way you could say that.”
Roman Reigns will carry both championship belts into Clash At The Castle in Cardiff to take on Drew McIntyre on the 3rd of September.